fragments

Medium: Installation
Year: 2000

The fragments installation is an interactive room. A constant flow of data moves through it and can be directed and controlled by the users within it. The room consists of two interactive walls and an audio system. The two walls have different functions. One wall is used for the navigation, the other one for the visualisation. A word-cloud on the navigation wall represents the data flow. Each word in this cloud is the container for a number of media fragments. By selecting a word, the media fragments are streamed to the visualisation wall. Here, they form an audio-visual collage.

The project relates to the idea of the invisible computer. The computer as an object does not appear in the installation. The output and input interfaces are reduced to the walls of the room. While the object dissapears, the design challenge lies in the relationship of the physical presence of both people and information in the digital space.

In the context of technologies like MP3, DVD or DivX, the computer is still understood as a channel for separate media. It is used to read texts, watch movies or listen to music. The fragments project attemts to fuse these seperate media types together. Not as parallel streams, but rather as an dynamic, ambient collage that blurs the boundaries of each media type.

The project is an artistic and creative exploration about the issue of interactive spaces. The aim was to make a statement about the aesthetic qualities of digital environments. The project is not about how the technology works but rather how it can be used.